


An Excerpt From The Making Of Heroes: A History of the Mighty Nein

by ChuckTaylorUpset



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Mollymauk & Lucien being referred to as the same person warning, Yeah you read that character tag right, in universe history, mourning post episode 26
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 07:10:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15334584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChuckTaylorUpset/pseuds/ChuckTaylorUpset
Summary: The following passage is an excerpt from the critically acclaimed best sellerThe Making of Heroes: A History of the Mighty Nein,by Nottasha Bookish





	An Excerpt From The Making Of Heroes: A History of the Mighty Nein

_The following passage is an excerpt from the critically acclaimed best seller_ The Making of Heroes: A History of the Mighty Nein, _by Nottasha Bookish_

It is hard to envision the Mighty Nein as anything less than the saviors and changers of Dwendalia, enders of the Imperial-Xhorhas War, and as the heroes of the realm. Most any child grew up on tales of their exploits, and historians are just the children who never outgrew hearing of their exploits. I myself am a historian because of my admiration of Beauregard and her unending pursuit of the truth and Nott the Brave, my chosen namesake, who to this day inspires Goblins to see that they can be more than is said in prejudice. But I learned, as all historians in this field must learn, that for all the greatness of the Mighty Nein, they could also be an incredible bunch of assholes. What fills the gap between a group of cavalier jerks maturing into a family of legendary heroes? I believe the answer can be found in the death of Mollymauk Tealeaf.

  
Mollymauk Tealeaf, born Lucien Correnthos, was a charismatic cult leader and accomplished blood hunter, who died after a botched ritual and was mysteriously resurrected in his grave. But after that resurrection he would escape with none of his memories. It was almost as if he had become a new person, and the name he chose for his new life was Mollymauk Tealeaf. He began work at a circus, always traveling, always seen as suspicious and strange. But in spite of that perceived strangeness he was by all accounts of those close to him loyal and lively and kind. One day on the road the circus picked up a new bouncer, then named Yasha and one day to earn the title Yasha the Magnificent. Together the two would go on to become founding members of a band of mercenaries called the Mighty Nein.

  
The Mighty Nein was heading towards Shady Creek Run when Jester, Fjord, and Yasha were taken in the middle of the night by a group of local slavers called the Iron Shepherds. It is hard to imagine the Mighty Nein having ever had trouble with such small villains. Lorenzo is never going to be the greatest of the Mighty Nein’s victories, not when compared with the likes of Trent Ikithon and the full force of an entire war. The Iron Shepherds are significant in their earliness not their strength. But that is what is seen in the crystal clear perspective of history, ironically a lens blind to some key facts. And the fact is that the Mighty Nein were young once. Once even the least of their powers were exciting and new and all encompassing. Once they were young, and the recent string of small victories was the greatest heights of fame and money they had ever known. Their naive assumption of immortality untested. They were so young, and they were vulnerable to growing overconfidence and to bad luck.

  
Their pursuit of their friends’ captors was relentless. They caught up in mere days, bolstered from a lucky boon of intel from a former Iron Shepherd, a Dwarven woman named Keg. They caught up to their targets, and then they took to the road ahead, and there they set a trap.

  
The actual battle was quick and brutal. The luck of the remaining four of the Mighty Nein turned sour, the intel from Keg not a boon but a shackle. They were outclassed, outnumbered, and only just realizing that they had made a very stupid mistake. And then Mollymauk Tealeaf died.

  
And this was not like the other of the many deaths of the Mighty Nein because this was, from the moment it happened, going to be permanent. Jester might have learned revify by then, but she was not there. The small group had no hope at coming up with the funds needed for a resurrection and they had not become the kind of people with allies and favors on which to call.

  
But still it cannot be said that Mollymauk’s death was in any way the same as the others to come. They could not mourn him as family, they had barely known him for a month, he could only be a coworker. If they grieved him, they grieved the future tense of him. In the possibilities of family and heroism that died with him.

  
It strikes me that there was nothing fundamentally different about Mollymauk Tealeaf. The only reason that he is not the subject of biographies and ballads and stories is that he had the misfortune to die. It is feels unfair that he did not know of the promise of heroism to all of his compatriots and that the same promise was not extended to him.

  
History is a rigid and unforgiving thing. Even a mage like the great Caleb Widogast could not turn back time nor alter its course once set in stone. So it is useless to speculate what could have happened had Mollymauk Tealeaf lived, who he would become, how he would change, how he would in turn change the people and events around him.

  
His death was not too long before Caleb, Nott, & Beau would meet the last member to complete the party. Whose name is known by all but at the time that name was meaningless to them. In my research of the life of Mollymauk Tealeaf, I was struck by how much he reminded me of what was basically his replacement. And I realized then that there was a day when that sense of deja vu happened in reverse. One day, Caleb and Nott and Beau met a new member of their family and all this person was to them was an echo of one who had already died.

  
And those echos lasted a long time. The group would one day go back and free the circus ringmaster whose misfortune was the catalyst for them coming together. That ringleader, despite carnie superstition and the ghosts of his old circus, named his new traveling show Mollymauk’s Traveling Circus. But we cannot take the death with us forever, by virtue that death sticks a person in the past. It is a change of state that is unchangeable, not really. And it changed the group permanently.

  
The group after the death of Mollymauk was different. A little less innocent, a little more serious, a little more sad. And when the time came that they were able to avenge their fallen friend, the wrath that fell down on the Iron Shephards was absolute.


End file.
